Diablo 3: The MMO that Was Supposed to Be

A little while back, there was some controversy between Blizzard North’s founder David Brevik and one of the lead designers in Diablo 3, Jay Wilson, over Jay Wilson’s rather unprofessional comments on Facebook towards Brevik’s views on how Diablo 3 turned out. Further investigation about the matter has shown me that Diablo 3 was essentially scraped as a result of an internal argument between Blizzard North and Viviendi over what was going to be an MMO version of Diablo 3.

Quite honestly, even before this scuffle occurred I knew from an insider that Blizzard originally intended to put all their focus behind the MMO of Diablo 3. There was internal talks about making Cataclysm the last expansion in the franchise for World of Warcraft then moving towards the newer Diablo 3 MMO engine as the company’s primary focus.

What exactly the internal argument between Blizzard North and Viviendi is something only those involved can say. But I think we can look in retrospect at the way things have worked out and draw some conclusions.

For myself, I believe that probably someone inside of Viviendi and/or Blizzard might have saw Diablo 3 as a threat to the World of Warcraft franchise. There probably was internal fights over money (since we all know what a cash cow World of Warcraft has been for the company). Since I know for a fact that there were talks about putting emphasis on Diablo 3, this simply reflects my belief that it was a departmental struggle where one group holding the cash saw the other as threatening their job security.

That said, when you look at Cataclysm, you begin to realize why it was handled in such a manner. Personally, I felt that World of Warcraft had become a victim of its own success, especially with Wrath of the Lich King move the game into its peak. However, the game, as admitted by the game maker themselves, is showing its age and probably needed to be revamped from the ground up.

With Cataclysm, I think there was an attempt. Certainly, there were modifications to the graphics of the vanilla areas to improve upon the basic engine. Also, there was a huge emphasis to improve the smoothness of leveling, since vanilla was considered difficult for casual players.

At the same time, I think the higher difficulty in some quests as well as heroics turned a lot of people off. A lot of the game had been smashed apart such as the talent system, which caused a slight uproar. But I think a lot of this was done for a reason: to push away players from World of Warcraft in preparation for Diablo 3 as an MMO.

I think Cataclysm was, as the title suggested, the end of the series and an internal joke to prevent casuals from sticking around while leaving enough of a game catered towards World of Warcraft’s core base. I mean, if Wrath of the Lich King provided a good formula for increasing viewership, why would a company bother to change up that formula? They ought to have foreseen that their hardcore audience would make up only a tiny fraction of their revenue.

When Diablo 3 the MMO didn’t pan out and the core team left, the game maker went into a panic mode. Obviously, they had to start from scratch, only having the IP to work with. But they had to make money, which probably was the core internal argument in the way things panned out. So Blizzard ended up taking Diablo 2’s basic concept, updating the graphics somewhat and integrating the auction house as the chief bet to make money.

If you really look at Diablo 3, the main reason why it’s been a major letdown is that there has been no innovation whatsoever as a game. You can compare it to Diablo 2 and Diablo 1 even because there is no difference outside of the fucked up talent system and the auction house. They’ve taken the so-called “safe formula” of gear grinding from World of Warcraft and placed it into this system for determining character power. Also, I believe that the main style of game play from the previous was preserved to provide that sanctuary of familiarity for veteran Diablo players.

Naturally, the real question is whether people would’ve accepted Diablo 3 as an MMO the way Brevik’s describes:

We wanted to take that and make that a reality, make that into an MMO experience. Then we had these towns which were not instanced, and they had lots of people in them, and you’re interacting and trading and selling and getting quests. Then you’d go out and have these experiences, but you would create these games and go out and play the game with a group of your friends.

I’ve always considered Diablo 3 your prototypical hack-n-slash dungeon crawler game. That genre takes the statistical parts of RPGs and leaves all the useless role playing dialog out (although there’s still quite a bit of cut scenes and chatter in Diablo 3). That’s why I still can enjoy Diablo 3, although there are still a lot of elements that are left to be desired.

I think if you add the MMO aspects, you start to force people into depending on others to get things done. For a hack-n-slasher, I’m not sure I would entirely favor that as a primary feature. I think a lot of people enjoy playing with others when they have the chance. But scheduling time for gaming can be a real hassle (which is why I absolutely hate the raiding concept)

At any rate, I found that article to be insightful and complimented my understanding of the situation. I still believe that no matter what though, you really need to keep the accountants, lawyers and corporate heads OUT OF GAMING. Please. You’re ruining it for everyone else. Go back to counting numbers but stay out of the game mechanics.

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